


The World Seemed to Burn

by itsybitsybosmer (ItsyBitsyBosmer)



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Annatar is a manipulative little shit, Celebrimbor's Life is a Tragedy, Guest appearances by Galadriel, I'm Sorry Tolkien, I'm sorry Lin Manuel Miranda, Love Letters, M/M, Melding Hamilton with High Fantasy, There are never happy endings with this ship I s2g
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 07:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16529942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsyBitsyBosmer/pseuds/itsybitsybosmer
Summary: In the final hours before Ost-in-Edhil falls to the forces of darkness, Celebrimbor finds some old letters.





	The World Seemed to Burn

**Author's Note:**

> This is me just blatantly melding The Silmarillion and Hamilton because for some reason I thought it would be a good idea. Title and general plot of the story are pulled from the song "Burn" from Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. I own nothing. Except the computer on which I wrote this.

The last of the civilians evacuated, Celebrimbor took a moment to regroup.  The armies of Mordor were coming, there was nothing he could do to stop that.  The city would be overrun, the remaining defenders were only a token force, those who refused to leave to join the armies of Galadriel and Celeborn or Gil-Galad.  They would all be dead by the time the orcs broke down the front gate ( _the one he’d opened so many years ago_ ).  Celebrimbor would be waiting, blade in hand.  Not that it would matter.

The Three were gone, safely delivered out of the city with a trusted messenger.  He didn’t have much time, but he stood in his office for probably the last time, looking around at things that reminded him of better, happier days: star charts, notebooks filled with half-scribbled ideas and theories, a broach that had belonged to his mother in Aman, a small alabaster box of hers that he’d kept private papers in.  This last item he pulled off the shelf and removed the lid to reveal a stack of letters tied together with a blue ribbon.

Stupid of him, to keep the damned things.  Stupider still to sit down by his hearth, light one last fire, and reread them as he waited for the enemy to bear down on them.

_Dearest_ _Tyelpë_ _... the progress you make with our research continues to surprise and delight... might I make a suggestion or two... aesthetics, aesthetics, you and your aesthetics, ridiculous man... regardless, I am proud of you... we shall speak more when I return... with affection,_ _Annatar_ _Aulendil_

Oh... Annatar certainly had a way with words.  Celebrimbor had been fascinated by his eloquence with the letter he’d sent ahead of his arrival in Ost-in-Edhil, fascinated despite the warnings from wiser heads than his.

_“I don’t like this, Celebrimbor,” Galadriel frowned as she looked over the letter handed to her by her younger cousin, “There is a reason Gil-_ _Galad_ _didn't want him in Lindon, perhaps you might follow his lead and bar this..._ _Annatar_ _from_ _Ost_ _-in-_ _Edhil_ _.  This one seems wrong; the clever ones are usually the most dangerous and will do anything to survive.”_

_“Your concerns are noted, Cousin, he’s piqued my curiosity, but I will be cautious all the same,” Celebrimbor told her breezily._

He hated that she’d ended up right in the end, but with every letter he read through, he found himself remembering every word, every sentence that turned his logical mind to putty in the Maia’s hands.  One letter was as close to smut as one got, Annatar making veiled references to all the ways he intended to make Celebrimbor sigh and swoon the moment he returned from his journey.  Another promised a world they would heal and rebuild together, a world where the sins of his bloodline would be forgiven.  The damnable Feanorion puts right what his forebears destroyed.

The world Annatar built for him burned bright with hope and new beginnings, and Celebrimbor wanted more than anything to be part of that.  He would reclaim his house’s honor, make it so he could hold his head high and be proud of those he was descended from.

Another letter made him pause.   _“You should not have taken advantage of my sensibilities to steal into my heart without my consent_ _1_ _.  Oh clever, clever_ _Tyelpë_ _, I had not thought to love one of the Children so ardently and completely that it overtook all rational thought, but I cannot bring myself to regret it.  When I return to_ _Ost_ _-in-_ _Edhil_ _, I shall have to make up for all the time I spent denying_ _myself the_ _sweetness_ _of your lips,_ _the comfort_ _of holding you in my arms.  With luck, I will arrive before this letter does so that I might have the pleasure of confessing my love to you with spoken words rather than written.  Yours affectionately,_ _Annatar_ _Aulendil_

Oh, Annatar was clever, he’d gone about seducing him so completely that Celebrimbor was blind-sided by his betrayal.  He’d kissed all his doubts away, twirling the Ñoldo so tightly around his finger that Celebrimbor refused to see what had been right in front of him the whole time.  He’d burned for him, had wanted that future that Annatar had painted of them standing side-by-side as they remade the world.  He knew what Galadriel would say if she knew how far he’d fallen under the Dark Lord’s spell.  He was just like his accursed grandfather, he had flown too close to danger and plummeted to the earth as a result.

Annatar... no... Sauron... no, calling him Sauron would be like hoping Annatar was someone else rather than just a disguise.  Celebrimbor set the letters down, his mind a jumbled mess.  So few knew of his love for the fallen Maia, fewer still knew how readily he’d let him into his heart and bed.  The fire in the hearth was dying down, so Celebrimbor picked up the first of the letters, screwed it up, and tossed it into the flames.

There, let chroniclers and historians wonder what the true nature of their relationship was, he thought as he fed more letters to the fire.  No one would get to know how utterly taken-in he’d been.  The last of the letters sitting in the dying hearth, Celebrimbor picked his sword back up and went out to meet the hordes bearing down on his city.  He knew Annatar would be waiting for him with honeyed words of love calculated to win him back to his side.

 

* * *

 

Celebrimbor had made a lovely banner, true he’d been battered and broken nearly to the point where he’d been unrecognizable, but Sauron had enjoyed seeing the smith’s body fluttering in the breeze.  It didn’t have to come to that, he’d told the stubborn elf that over and over and over, but did he listen? No, he was more interested in being a martyr.  Fine, if martyrdom was what Celebrimbor wanted, then that was what he’d get.

He thought of Celebrimbor’s last words, his last moment of defiance that had broken through all the torments inflicted upon him over the time in Sauron’s care.  “ _I hope you burn_ ,” said with such vehemence that Sauron was surprised he still had any fight and fire left in him at all.

_“Oh_ _Tyelpë_ _, don’t you remember? I am a creature of fire, such a useless threat,”_  he’d laughed, and he smiled again as he entered what had been Celebrimbor’s office, the scene of many long nights between them discussing anything and everything.  The hearth had long since gone cold, but scraps of half-burnt paper still sat amongst the ashes.  Picking one of them out, he recognized Celebrimbor’s messy scrawl that he used for informal things.

_It’s done.  The Three are gone._

Stupid, stupid creature.  He’d find those rings, he’d make them his.   _We’ll see who burns,_ _Tyelperinquar_ _._

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Taken from Alexander Hamilton's letters to John Laurens


End file.
